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Hey John,
how's your season going? We're doing a lot better than the last couple of years. We're hoping we can get a little more sap over the next few days, but I'm not sure how long the holes will stay open on our taps with bags, since we tapped mid-January.

They were sanitized, but this is the end of the 6th week, so we're starting to push the limits. A few of them are starting to get some purple slime on them, so that's a bad sign. Unfortunately we've had quite a bit of warm weather lately, so that's not helping.

If our tubing lines continue to run we might be able make a little more, we'll see. The forecast isn't all that great. We could add 12-15 on tubing & around 30 bags if we feel energetic & the forecast looks good for another week or so

I also put in my taps mid January but I think the we have had a slower warm up than 2017. I have enough syrup to equal about a quart per tap. Better than the last two years. I plan to stay in a while longer.

To your question from last year about tubing slope on my 40 taps, I think it is less than 4% on 5 year old Leader 5/16". How do you have your 3/16" tubing set up and how is working for you?

Sorry John, I thought I had replied, but I guess I got happy fingers & it didn't post.
We have our 3/16" lines on a property just north of Coatesville, on the west side of 75. We're working with an average slope over 7%, with a total drop of about 40'. So far in our second year of using the tubing we're really happy with it. Even with a short drive to get there & pumping ot into our transport tank we really like being able to collect sap from 50+ trees in about 20 minutes.
For next year we're going to look into access to another nearby property that has a bit less slope, but it drops about 30' total, so that should still create decent vacuum.
Our taps with bags are mostly dried up, but the tubing is running well. We pulled some bags from dry holes & moved them to trees we hadn't tapped to stretch things out a little, but it looks like we'll be wrapping up this weekend.

Yeah, my wife said something about it being a long season earlier in the week, and it has been, but we really need to replace our syrup pans, so we're making as much as we can to sell.
Now it's looking like good weather at least through the middle of next week, so we'll keep squeezing out as much as we can

John, we did a test run of 1000' of tubing to the woods (& back) last weekend. We plugged in our new Lunchbox, waited a bit and it pumped water back to the barn like a champ. We may have to get another one!
Thanks for the demo last spring